Is the United States any better than.... bin Laden?
Interrogator Pleads Guilty in Afghan Case
Apologizing for embarrassing the Army, a military intelligence interrogator admitted he abused an Afghan detainee who later died. [...]He admitted that he stood by in December 2002 as former Sgt. Selena M. Salcedo lifted a detainee known as Dilawar by his ear and former Spc. Joshua R. Claus made another detainee roll around on the floor and kiss Walls’ boots.
Walls also admitted pushing Dilawar against a wall during the interrogation in which Salcedo abused him. Dilawar’s death has led to charges against a number of service members.
“I’m sorry because ... it was my duty to stop it and by not doing so I’ve embarrassed my unit, I’ve embarrassed the Army,” Walls said in a soft voice. “It was humiliating. It was just wrong. I should have stopped it.”
He’s sorry because he embarrassed the Army and his unit? The man they killed, or should I say murdered, was a 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, who was found after his death to be innocent. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As a New York Times article stated, “Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.”
What was the punishment for Dilawar’s murder? Spc. Glendale Walls, a U.S. military intelligence interrogator from Ft. Bragg, N.C., was convicted of assault on Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2005, at Fort Bliss, Texas, that let to Dilawar’s death. He was given a bad conduct discharge and two months in prison.
Two months in prison. Can we even imagine what the prisoner went through? He was found to be innocent. This is what we are...
Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.
The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.
Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar’s face.
“Come on, drink!” the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. “Drink!”
At the interrogators’ behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.
“Leave him up,” one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.
Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. (source)
And it’s not just people like Dilawar. There are many many others like him. This entire incident could easily have been swept under the carpet and forgotten about, which makes me wonder how many others have we ignored in the past four years?
We talk about liberty, and justice, and democracy. If this is the kind of crap that we want to hold up to our standard of justice, I want no part of it. And we wonder why the rest of the world is getting its’ fill of America.
Any way you slice it, this is just wrong. I’m not really interested in the old adage, “These things happen in time of war.” Ask Dilawar’s family if that’s good enough for them.
As long as we are talking about democracy and freedom, let’s take a sneak peek at this new Iraqi Constitution that is going to free the Iraqi people from tyranny of us Saddam Hussein.
Key Points:
any new law must conform to Islam
women will be, in many cases, second-class citizens, especially in family matters
Islam is the official state religion, and it is the principal source of legislation
Article 2 declares: “It is forbidden to enact laws which contradict the principles of Islam.” What effect would the current Article 2 have in practice? In theory, it would entail that all legislation contrary to Islam would be anti-constitutional and therefore liable to be revoked.
So much for freedom and democracy.
Sources
A Vague Constitution
A Constitution or an Epitaph?
Iraq’s war on women
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Oh I think I have a pretty good idea what happened over there. Basically, "they" took this guy into custody and tortured him to death. Of course we aren't going to accept blame for this, just like we never really accepted blame (as a nation) for what we did (as a nation) at Abu Ghraib. There, we singled out a few bad apples and said that they were the problem. And they expect me to believe that?
It would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. What happened at Abu Ghraib all happened with the blessing of the very top officials in OUR GOVERNMENT.
It's the same damn thing with this poor man all over again. We are finger pointing.
At the end of the day, he is dead and no one is accepting any responsibility for it. Does his life have such little meaning? And if it does, how much meaning would you expect us to put on your life if you were in Dilawar's situation?
I guess we will do what we American's do when stuff like this happens. We will simple nonchalantly say, "shit happens", and be done with it.
Whoa, get ahold of yourselves. You have absolutely no idea what happened over there. SPC Walls had very little contact with dilawar. What you don't understand, and what the Army is not releasing, is that Dilawar was already beaten up pretty badly BEFORE he came to Bagram.
The actual Colonal that evaluated Dilawar, was incompatent, and even the autopsy states that the contusions in his legs (which eventually led to his death) was done well before he arrived in Bagram. The military and the government are finding witches and burning em at the stakes. The situation has roused so much interest from other countries and liberal parties that government "needs" to hang someone, to supress the actual horrendous acts that occured over there. Because of the inocompatence, the army has no idea who is responsible. The public wanted an MI guy to hang, even though the MP that was originally charged with murder was simply reduced in rank. The man that "shoved" Dilawar against a wall got jail time? Come on, even the most biased fanatics can see that something just isn't right.
I agree totally with what you said.
I think the big issue for me right now is the moral superiority that we seem to think we have, as you mentioned. I don't know about you, but I'm getting a bit tired of "supporting our troops", when I constantly come across stories like this. First we heard of Abu Ghraib, then Guantanamo, now this - along with many others that keep hitting the papers day after day. I find myself wondering how many are there that we just never hear about?
I can understand that I, sitting on my butt writing about this in my easy chair, don't fully understand or appreciate the nature of war and all the horrible things that can happen (and a soldier can see) in a war. But, at the end of the day, right is right and wrong is wrong, to put it simply.
I also understand that there are many soldiers who are just trying to do the best they can under the circumstances our President has put them under. But, if I support things like this, I might as well have been in the same room while they were doing it because I am supporting that action.
I can't do that.
Americans seem unwilling to accept the fact that we are just as capable of committing atrocities during a war. We white-wash our past and pretend that we're morally superior.
During WWII, there were many abuses of prisoners of war at camps right here in the U.S. There are numerous documented cases. They can't be compared to the organized atrocities committed by Germany and Japan, but that doesn't mean they weren't cruel and inhumane.
In addition to abuse of prisoners, the U.S. has engaged in kidnapping and imprisoning civilian foreign nationals in the past (similar to what we're doing at Guantánamo today).
The Japanese internment camps get a great deal of attention. But, no one ever writes about the tens of thousands of civilians of Japanese heritage who were brought to the U.S. from Central and South America and imprisoned here. The U.S. made a deal with several countries to imprison their Japanese along with our own.
Most of the Japanese from South America were never allowed to return home. They were deported to Japan even though many of them were second- and third-generation citizens of other countries.
I have seen numerous documentaries and news articles about the "Japanese-American" internment camps. But, no one ever brings up our role in what was really an attempt by many Central and South American countries to get rid of their Japanese -- a form of ethnic cleansing.